Crimson Kathryn and her crew

Well lots has happened since my last blog page. We made our crossing from Varadero to Marathon in just under 18 hours. We had lots of wind and weather and it was super bouncy. Not much sleeping on this overnight! We had all 3 sails up and decided to lower the main sail to help with our rolling. Of course as soon as you lower a sail the wind dies. We decided to raise the main sail again (remember this is at night – way more challenging) and wouldn’t you know, we headed straight into a storm front. We went from under 10 knots to over 20 knots in minutes. Mark got wet from the rain and I got wet from peeing my pants as our speed toppped 10.5 knots (we normally do 6 – 7 knots)!!!!!

Our landing stop in Florida was Marathon Municipal Marina – a very interesting place. It has a huge mooring field and dinghy dock but very little dock space for boats. We enjoyed our brief stay there and were able to do some real grocery shopping (not Cuba style shopping), including some nice wine! Love the US for one stop shopping – food, wine, beer all together!

So we get to Marathon and of course we have to check in with customs – always an exciting process. Mark made many phone calls trying to find out where we clear in and we are told to go to Key West within 24 hours of our entrance – oops. We’d already been in Marathon 5 hours by this time. Well let’s just change our arrival time to the phone call time which is 4 pm Friday, July 14. 
We travel to Key West – an iconic southern city – on Saturday afternoon. We clear in with only a few issues (like finding the customs office) and had a very nice dinner near the waterfront. We did visit a bar called Margaritaville and Mark had a margarita. It’s a very interesting city with tons of tourists!

Our journey north was windless so we motored all the way – 4 days in total. We stopped near the Everglades National Park, Naples, Boca Grande and finally at the dock at Charlotte Harbor Boat Storage. We finally caught some fish worth eating – 2 Spanish mackerels and saw lots of pelicans (I love pelicans), some dolphins and one alligator! Crimson Kathryn will be hauled out soon and stay on the hard here for the upcoming year. She will rest easy and wait for our return in July 2018.

The time has come for Crimson Kathryn to leave Cuba and head back to her land home in Florida. We have had an interesting time in Cuba and have enjoyed learning about the people and history of this country. The best part of Cuba is definitely the people. They are very kind and happy to help you. 

Our overnight trip to La Habana (Havana to us English speaking folks) was wonderful. It is a beautiful city with lots of history and stories. We visited modern Havana with more current architecture. The Cubans are very proud of the fact that they own and operate all these hotels that used to be run by American mafia. We also spent a morning exploring old Havana – that was very interesting. Lots of wonderful old building and cobble stone roads. To top off the trip, we spent our 30th anniversary evening at the Tropicana Club. It’s an open air Las Vegas style show. It was really good – great costumes, dancing and singing. They also gave our table a bottle of rum with a small bottle of coke each – too much rum!!

Today, Thursday July 13, we sail across to Marathon, Florida. We’re leaving around 4 pm and it should take us about 18 hours to cross. We’ll visit Marathon and the Keys for a few days and then head for Port Charlotte on the west coast. Crimson Kathryn will be hauled out and stored here until we return next summer.

We have returned to Varadero to finish the last part of our year off. The boat was in good shape when we arrived at 1:30am. It was good to be back on board. In the morning we did a little grocery shopping nearby but it will be tough to provision well here in Cuba. We also bought an overnight trip to Havana for next Tuesday – that will be fun.

Today we moved the boat back to our original dock and were allowed to side tie!! Yippy – no more walking the plank to get off the boat. Unfortunately we found out as we moved that the propeller and the entire bottom of the boat is covered in barnacles and other growth. Mark had a hard time getting us over to the dock but we made it. Mark dove down and cleared the propeller so we should be able to move better and we’re thinking of having the boat hauled out and power washed to remove the growth. Oh the challenges of boat life.

It’s super hot here and we are very thankful for our air conditioning. Certainly makes Marina life more enjoyable when you can hide inside a cool boat.

It’s been a very interesting 2 weeks in Cuba. There have been lots of neat things and nice people, but on the whole, Mark and I haven’t been that impressed. Puerto de Vita was an excellent check in point. First the doctor came on board while we were still at anchor. He asked a few questions, gave us forms to fill out and took our temperature. Then we were allowed to dock at the Marina. Most of Cuba uses a style of docking called “med mooring”. This means you tie up at the dock by the stern with the bow held out by the anchor. Picture our boat (if you can 😊). Our stern is a good 5 feet from the water and there is no way to cross through to a dock. We’re using a plank of wood that we have on board as a passerel. It’s a bit tricky but works. Once tied up at the dock, we were boarded by many officials and 2 dogs. The whole process took about 30 minutes but we ended up getting our cruising permit and visas. 

While at Vita, we did a day trip to the city of Holguin and had a great tour by a local man named Mick. It was very good and we had a great day.

From Vita, we’ve been sailing along the north coast heading to our final destination, Marina Hemingway near Havana. This has been the not so fun part. Cruisers are required to check in at all stops and if you go to a port, you must surrender your cruising permit and anchor close to the Guardia Frontera offices (which in most of these ports is located at the commercial docks). You’re not allowed to go onshore at these locations. You can only go ashore at islands that are deserted and we only found one of those.

We have seen some amazing islands and lots of resorts. We also saw some of the reefs around a few of the islands and as we got closer to Varadero, the water became so clear and calm that we could see the bottom even at 50 ft. We did some more fishing and managed to catch more barracuda- I’m really done with the Barracuda, lots of fight but a real pain to get off the hook (lots of big teeth).

Now we’re in Varadero at Cuba’s largest Marina, about 1100 slips!!! We’re looking forward to exploring this area and maybe doing a few bus tours of the countryside to see more of Cuba. We also need to buy some Cuban rum and more internet cards so we can keep using the wifi.

We’ve spent over 2 months in the Bahamas and have seen some amazing sights. It has been an incredible journey as we explored the Exumas and the Jumentos. One of the best parts of our time in the Bahamas was meeting other cruisers. Our last stop in the Jumentos was Hog Cay. There were 3 other boats in this anchorage and we had the pleasure of getting to know the cruisers aboard each boat when we went ashore to the Hog Cay Yacht Club (a very nice tiki hut built on the island by the residence of Ragged Island). We would gather at the club each afternoon and chat while watching the sun went down. 

From Bimini all the way down to Little Ragged Island, we’ve managed to see lots of aquatic life, do some great swimming, lots of excellent walks and also managed to get some pretty awesome tans! We also managed to get through a good amount of booze!🍾😉

Now it’s on to Cuba. Our plan is to sail across from Little Ragged Island to Puerto de Vita on Tuesday, May 2. It should take us about 11 hours. Once we arrive, we will have to anchor near the Marina and wait till morning to start our check in process. First of all a doctor will board our boat, take our temperature and ask a few health questions. Once we pass this inspection, we can head to the Marina. Once tied up, we will be boarded by 2 dogs – the drug sniffer and the explosives sniffer. Once we pass the sniff test, I guess the customs and immigration folks come.

We have about a month to make the roughly 400 knot journey from Puerto de Vita to Havana. We’ll leave the boat at Marina Hemingway near Havana and return home end of May. Should be a fun and interesting month. Hopefully we’ll have some wifi in Cuba so we can update the blog.

We had a great and super fast week with Caroline! We visited Chat and Chill, snorkelled a few reefs, swam with a large barracuda, relaxed on the beach and had some awesome dinners, both on and off the boat! I think Caroline got the full George Town experience and I know we all had a blast. I was wonderful to,have Caroline onboard and now I can’t wait until Cuba because both Evelyn and Caroline (and hopefully Ethan) are hoping to join us for a week.

Now it’s time to leave George Town and head for Cuba via the Jumentos and Ragged Island. Today we are buying more food etc for the remainder of our trip because getting good food in Cuba can be a bit of a challenge. We’ve enjoyed our time here but are looking forward to seeing new places and sailing a bit.

We will have wifi for a bit longer but will also be switching back to the inreach when we are out of range of the BTC cell towers.

We had a plan when we arrived early to George Town. We were going to check out the area, maybe go as far as Long Island. So far we have moved a grand total of 4 knots! We moved closer to town so we could do laundry without getting soaked (well more soaked) on our dinghy ride in. From there we moved to Monument Beach for one night and then we went all the way down to Man of War Cay and ended up spending 2 nights anchored by Red Shanks Cay.

We’re back at Sand Dollar Beach and just had our first rain since we arrived here. Always love a bit of rain because it washes off some of the salt we’ve accumulated on everything. It gets awefully hot in the boat though, especially this time because I was making more banana bread!

Here’s a few more photos of the area. Only 8 more days before Caroline arrives!